Art and Money Are Intertwined
By Katha Pollitt
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000, at 5:31 PM ETDear Sarah,
Of course different people take different things from a work of art, and works of art, like elephants, can be apprehended at many different levels. But I don't think we want to undervalue the importance of actually knowing what one is talking about or looking at. People always talk about the groundlings' great love of Shakespeare, as if to say that great art is not so difficult, but Shakespeare was the groundlings' contemporary--his words and conceptual framework and topical references weren't so foreign to their ears. They may have grasped a lot more than we tend to give them credit for: They all knew, for instance, that "wherefore" means "why" and not "where" and could identify the different factions in the history plays that are so hard to keep straight now.
There's a lot of art that I know I would respond to more deeply if I could imaginatively apprehend it with an awareness of the way its audience was meant to respond. For example, all those 17th- and 18th-century Italian pictures of the Virgin Mary ascending to heaven, surrounded by angels. To me, they look silly--grandiose, saccharine, overblown, vulgar. The Virgin simpers and rolls her eyes, clouds billow, little winged baby heads fly about. Who needs this! I think. But there they are, in just about every museum in the world that can afford them, multimillion-dollar, certified Great Art. I would argue that the only way to get much out of such paintings is either to share the overblown tastes of the Italian Baroque, to be religious in the way the pictures are, or to see them historically. But in order to see a painting historically, you have to understand what it is doing visually, so there the two approaches come together.
Now, Mr. Armstrong has written in to "The Fray," and I must say his letter is a model of what a writer's response to a nonrave review should be--none of the usual bile, spite, outrage, and scorn. I felt an immediate urge to say nice things about his book and to apologize for having made fun of Italian sports cars. He makes a good point, too, that the historical and the aesthetic are not opposed, but you can understand something historically and still not like it much, so he is trying to awaken the reader's sense of visual enjoyment. It's hard to argue with that. My problem was that Move Closer did that best when he discussed specific paintings, and there wasn't enough of that.
I also wish he had queried at least a little bit the related ideas of the museum, greatness, and art. Since you mention your child, I would like to use my child-mentioning space to recommend a book by a friend--Alan Wallach's Exhibiting Contradiction: Essays on the Art Museum in the United States (University of Massachusetts Press). It's a fascinating discussion of the history of museums and the idea of the museum--what is thought to belong in them, who are they made for, what stories about ourselves do museums tell, why certain kinds of people--(Proust's young lady, you, me) go there or feel they should. The subject of the art world--or artworld, as it is now so often styled--is very deep: the few thousand people who keep the whole business of art going through museums, galleries, reviews, art history departments, books like this. You can't talk about it without talking about money--and let's not forget that Mr. Armstrong is an art dealer--and yet, that is the one thing that is almost never talked about. Move Closer sometimes reminded me of the energetic and very knowledgeable docents one sees sometimes in museums, guiding about a wealthy couple from the provinces. She (the vast majority of docents are female) explains how you can tell the arm in this portrait was painted over and how the sun picks out the rooftops in that rural scene. It's all quite interesting--I like to stand next to the couple and hear the free chat. But you just know that someone is trying to extract some serious money from those upwardly mobile innocents!
When I left the museum, I stopped to watch a street performer. He was a thin, middle-aged Japanese man, dressed in the black costume of a stagehand in the Noh drama. He was engaged in covering a square of sidewalk with a square of 10,000 pennies, which he laid down carefully and precisely, one by one. A sign read: "After I complete the piece, I will dismantle it. In doing so, I will make ART out of MONEY and allow ART to revert to MONEY."
The history of art, I thought, in a single sentence.
I've really enjoyed our talk--the first of many, I hope.
Cheers,
Katha
Art and Money Are Intertwined
By Katha Pollitt
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000, at 5:31 PM ET
This week, Sarah Lyall and Katha Pollitt examine Move Closer
by John Armstrong and the advice it gives about viewing art. Click here for a word on our format and here to buy the book. Reply from the author of Move Closer:
It's always instructive to hear what other people make of a book one has written--especially when they interpret it in unexpected ways.
One issue I was trying to get away from is the either/or contest between pure visual experience and historical knowledge. I take it for granted that it is generally very important to have some historical awareness. This is the current orthodoxy--and I'm not in opposition to it. However, orthodoxies have a way of making us lose sight of other things. In this book I'm trying to redress the balance--not suggest that historical knowledge is irrelevant, but that other things are relevant too. Obviously one could know a great deal about the historical context of a painting and not be gripped by it--so what else is needed?
A second major issue was raised in The Fray, by the brothersjudd [see below]. They suggest that my approach--which concentrates on the response of individual spectators--is in conflict with a more normative account which recognizes that some works are far superior to others. But there isn't a conflict. In fact I'm very sympathetic to the idea that artistic value is normative--that some works are better artistically than others. My project in Move Closer is to address the issue of how we come to recognize the merits of a work. If we are to appreciate the great works, their merits have to come alive in our own experience--I have to see and experience the profundity of Michelangelo or the sweetness of Boucher, if I am to grasp the excellence of these works. So what I concentrate on in Move Closer is the way in which individual experience can become more perceptive, more engaged with an individual work.
The relationship between art and money is a complex one. There no doubt at all that works of art (that is, the kind of works one finds in the great museums) are luxury items. However, I think we can sometimes be overwhelmed by this connection and miss some interesting points. For one thing, many of the works which are most admired were not painted as luxury items at all. Some of my favourite paintings are Constable's cloud studies, which he didn't sell, but painted for his own interest. They are now, of course, worth a great deal of money--but I don't think that financial fact really tells us very much about the appeal and intimate character of those works--although it certainly tells us something about the society in which we live now.
One of my formative experiences was in the Wallace Collection in London (free entry)--probably the most sumptuous gallery in the UK. I was completely poor at that point and extremely worried about money (holes in my shoes, unable to pay the rent, working as a waiter in a café--three pounds an hour). I felt seriously at odds with the evident affluence of most of the visitors--and with the glamour of some of the pictures. But there were a few pictures which still seemed to say something of interest. There was a Dutch interior showing a woman in a very plain room, sewing while her baby slept in its crib at her side. I found the simplicity and serenity of the picture very appealing--it didn't solve any of my problems but it expressed a state of mind I longed for: a capacity to concentrate, a sense of containment and quiet purpose. Historically, this painting would have been bought by an affluent collector. It belongs to a genre of pictures which present appealing views of the poor. But concentrating on that historical fact can lead one to miss another fact: it also captures something real--and was painted from an understanding of the state of mind it captures. It spoke to me in a way which, probably, it didn't to its original owner. In Move Closer, I tried to write with that kind of experience in mind--although I now see that it didn't come through clearly.
On a point of clarification, I did recover from a hangover in a church in Florence (although not the one illustrated in the book). It was in the same period as my Wallace Collection experience, I was staying in the youth hostel and wasn't allowed to stay in the dormitory during the day (like everyone else I prefer to recover in bed). The quiet grey and white of the church seemed to be saying something like: sweet child, what are you doing; remember tranquility is what you really want--all that red wine isn't what you need, I know about your other side, and I'm gently reminding you who you are. There are so many different kinds of art--and no-one needs to be interested in it all. The point is to try to recognize which works have most to say to you. And it's not always going to be obvious. That is why an encounter with a work of art can be both a discovery of it and a discovery of something in oneself. By way of explanation I should perhaps add that I'm not primarily a dealer--I'm far more involved in academic work. One of the things which I have found interesting about dealing is the fact that, at my end of the market, one is concerned with works which are clearly not masterpieces but which nevertheless have some merit. A work by an obscure artist, or--as is quite often the case, a work which cannot securely be attributed to any known artist--throws the viewer back on their own resources. You have to ask yourself: do I like this, why do I like it, what are its weaknesses? An obviously flawed work is more like a person whose faults are often closely bound up with their appealing qualities.
--John Armstrong
(To reply, click
here.)
Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: We'd be disappointed if a Fray on Art didn't contain a post called "Eye of the Beholder", and here it is--and it produced a fascinating exchange summed up by Gail here as "being articulate isn't a prerequisite for enjoying art." We were particularly taken with Willy Wonka's "Bet you're a bowler" here: is this the birth of an erudite new insult? We believe it to be based on Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone (click here for a discussion of the book by the author)--but if you're a BookClub Fray reader you knew that didn't you?
There was a nice post from Betsey, here: "Forget about history, ignore the captions, don't go to an exhibit that can distract you with its multitudes. Don't get hung up on a bunch of virgins and cherubs you don't believe in regardless of how insightful your theoretical grasp of how the historical and visual intersect each other."
Applejack describes the splendidly-named "Museum Leg" here--"I suspect it's a combination of mental strain from squinting at paintings, agonizingly slow shuffling along in airless galleries, and lower back pain from stooping over to read those little explanatory cards." There were recommendations for the Frick and the Museum of Craft in NYC; Steve Dowling had trenchant words about Museum admissions below; and Vicky Lee had good advice for gallery-goers.]
The book is short, eminently readable and contains sumptuous illustrations which he uses to good effect in making his points. But the points he's making all deal, as his sub-title suggests, with internal reactions and personal likes and dislikes. This is fine up to a point, but there does come a point where this kind of intensely individualistic approach really abandons the idea of art and particularly of great art.
Obviously there are personal reasons why one individual likes Rembrandt best and another likes Michelangelo. Framed in this context, such preferences are not all that significant--who is to say ultimately which is the better artist ? Does the attempt to differentiate even make a whole lot of sense? But carried to it's logical extreme, and it breaks down long before the extreme, the idea that there is much significance to each individual's unique interaction with artwork undermines the concept of art itself. Given the 5 billion people on the planet, it is entirely possible that there's at least one person who will like just about anything that someone puts down on paper. The salient question is: does the fact that someone reacts favorably to it make it art? I would argue that it does not. Armstrong uses the metaphor of "seeing people share a joke others don't quite catch." But an emphasis on individual reaction eventually leads to just such a situation, one where we are all incapable of detachment and only react to those jokes (or paintings) which appeal uniquely to us. Then art ceases to be capable of communicating ideas; it is reduced instead to appealing to viewers' emotions. At another point Armstrong compares the affection that we develop for certain works of art to the way we develop love for another person, but someone loved Hitler and someone loved Ted Bundy. What do those emotions have to do with the absolute value of the objects of the affection? Great art, those works which we generally recognize as canonical, should not merely be attractive to a few, but accessible to and appreciated by the multitudes. Art should be universal, not individual, and should prompt a general reaction in most of us, not in an elite or in a handful of folks.
--brothersjudd
(To reply, or to read a longer version of this post, click
here.)
I don't take the suggested donation idea [at the Met] seriously at all. I'm a NYC taxpayer & these are my dollars at work, dammit. I pay for the length of time I expect to use the museum, usually 2-3 hours, and I pay $1 per hour. The cashiers at the Met are not so overpaid and snobby that they look down at people who refuse to be gouged for $10.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click
here.)
I also become numb when looking at art for too long. The only solution--limit visits to an hour or two, and limit them by subject matter. Visit only the French Renaissance paintings of a certain artist, or only the American paintings of a certain period. Better yet, pick a favorite and just sit in front of it and imagine being a part of it. This is difficult if you pay for each admission, so I prefer annual memberships or small collections.
Also, I play a game. I know the artist wants to control my eye movements over the surface, so I track the way my eyes respond. Insofar as depth perception is an issue (as in the early Renaissance paintings), I try to catch the devices to fool the eye.
--Vicky Lee
(To reply, click
here.)
(10/25)
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Reply from the author of Move Closer:
It's always instructive to hear what other people make of a book one has written--especially when they interpret it in unexpected ways.
One issue I was trying to get away from is the either/or contest between pure visual experience and historical knowledge. I take it for granted that it is generally very important to have some historical awareness. This is the current orthodoxy--and I'm not in opposition to it. However, orthodoxies have a way of making us lose sight of other things. In this book I'm trying to redress the balance--not suggest that historical knowledge is irrelevant, but that other things are relevant too. Obviously one could know a great deal about the historical context of a painting and not be gripped by it--so what else is needed?
A second major issue was raised in The Fray, by the brothersjudd [see below]. They suggest that my approach--which concentrates on the response of individual spectators--is in conflict with a more normative account which recognizes that some works are far superior to others. But there isn't a conflict. In fact I'm very sympathetic to the idea that artistic value is normative--that some works are better artistically than others. My project in Move Closer is to address the issue of how we come to recognize the merits of a work. If we are to appreciate the great works, their merits have to come alive in our own experience--I have to see and experience the profundity of Michelangelo or the sweetness of Boucher, if I am to grasp the excellence of these works. So what I concentrate on in Move Closer is the way in which individual experience can become more perceptive, more engaged with an individual work.
The relationship between art and money is a complex one. There no doubt at all that works of art (that is, the kind of works one finds in the great museums) are luxury items. However, I think we can sometimes be overwhelmed by this connection and miss some interesting points. For one thing, many of the works which are most admired were not painted as luxury items at all. Some of my favourite paintings are Constable's cloud studies, which he didn't sell, but painted for his own interest. They are now, of course, worth a great deal of money--but I don't think that financial fact really tells us very much about the appeal and intimate character of those works--although it certainly tells us something about the society in which we live now.
One of my formative experiences was in the Wallace Collection in London (free entry)--probably the most sumptuous gallery in the UK. I was completely poor at that point and extremely worried about money (holes in my shoes, unable to pay the rent, working as a waiter in a café--three pounds an hour). I felt seriously at odds with the evident affluence of most of the visitors--and with the glamour of some of the pictures. But there were a few pictures which still seemed to say something of interest. There was a Dutch interior showing a woman in a very plain room, sewing while her baby slept in its crib at her side. I found the simplicity and serenity of the picture very appealing--it didn't solve any of my problems but it expressed a state of mind I longed for: a capacity to concentrate, a sense of containment and quiet purpose. Historically, this painting would have been bought by an affluent collector. It belongs to a genre of pictures which present appealing views of the poor. But concentrating on that historical fact can lead one to miss another fact: it also captures something real--and was painted from an understanding of the state of mind it captures. It spoke to me in a way which, probably, it didn't to its original owner. In Move Closer, I tried to write with that kind of experience in mind--although I now see that it didn't come through clearly.
On a point of clarification, I did recover from a hangover in a church in Florence (although not the one illustrated in the book). It was in the same period as my Wallace Collection experience, I was staying in the youth hostel and wasn't allowed to stay in the dormitory during the day (like everyone else I prefer to recover in bed). The quiet grey and white of the church seemed to be saying something like: sweet child, what are you doing; remember tranquility is what you really want--all that red wine isn't what you need, I know about your other side, and I'm gently reminding you who you are. There are so many different kinds of art--and no-one needs to be interested in it all. The point is to try to recognize which works have most to say to you. And it's not always going to be obvious. That is why an encounter with a work of art can be both a discovery of it and a discovery of something in oneself. By way of explanation I should perhaps add that I'm not primarily a dealer--I'm far more involved in academic work. One of the things which I have found interesting about dealing is the fact that, at my end of the market, one is concerned with works which are clearly not masterpieces but which nevertheless have some merit. A work by an obscure artist, or--as is quite often the case, a work which cannot securely be attributed to any known artist--throws the viewer back on their own resources. You have to ask yourself: do I like this, why do I like it, what are its weaknesses? An obviously flawed work is more like a person whose faults are often closely bound up with their appealing qualities.
--John Armstrong
(To reply, click here.)
Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: We'd be disappointed if a Fray on Art didn't contain a post called "Eye of the Beholder", and here it is--and it produced a fascinating exchange summed up by Gail here as "being articulate isn't a prerequisite for enjoying art." We were particularly taken with Willy Wonka's "Bet you're a bowler" here: is this the birth of an erudite new insult? We believe it to be based on Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone (click here for a discussion of the book by the author)--but if you're a BookClub Fray reader you knew that didn't you?
There was a nice post from Betsey, here: "Forget about history, ignore the captions, don't go to an exhibit that can distract you with its multitudes. Don't get hung up on a bunch of virgins and cherubs you don't believe in regardless of how insightful your theoretical grasp of how the historical and visual intersect each other."
Applejack describes the splendidly-named "Museum Leg" here--"I suspect it's a combination of mental strain from squinting at paintings, agonizingly slow shuffling along in airless galleries, and lower back pain from stooping over to read those little explanatory cards." There were recommendations for the Frick and the Museum of Craft in NYC; Steve Dowling had trenchant words about Museum admissions below; and Vicky Lee had good advice for gallery-goers.]
The book is short, eminently readable and contains sumptuous illustrations which he uses to good effect in making his points. But the points he's making all deal, as his sub-title suggests, with internal reactions and personal likes and dislikes. This is fine up to a point, but there does come a point where this kind of intensely individualistic approach really abandons the idea of art and particularly of great art.
Obviously there are personal reasons why one individual likes Rembrandt best and another likes Michelangelo. Framed in this context, such preferences are not all that significant--who is to say ultimately which is the better artist ? Does the attempt to differentiate even make a whole lot of sense? But carried to it's logical extreme, and it breaks down long before the extreme, the idea that there is much significance to each individual's unique interaction with artwork undermines the concept of art itself. Given the 5 billion people on the planet, it is entirely possible that there's at least one person who will like just about anything that someone puts down on paper. The salient question is: does the fact that someone reacts favorably to it make it art? I would argue that it does not. Armstrong uses the metaphor of "seeing people share a joke others don't quite catch." But an emphasis on individual reaction eventually leads to just such a situation, one where we are all incapable of detachment and only react to those jokes (or paintings) which appeal uniquely to us. Then art ceases to be capable of communicating ideas; it is reduced instead to appealing to viewers' emotions. At another point Armstrong compares the affection that we develop for certain works of art to the way we develop love for another person, but someone loved Hitler and someone loved Ted Bundy. What do those emotions have to do with the absolute value of the objects of the affection? Great art, those works which we generally recognize as canonical, should not merely be attractive to a few, but accessible to and appreciated by the multitudes. Art should be universal, not individual, and should prompt a general reaction in most of us, not in an elite or in a handful of folks.
--brothersjudd
(To reply, or to read a longer version of this post, click here.)
I don't take the suggested donation idea [at the Met] seriously at all. I'm a NYC taxpayer & these are my dollars at work, dammit. I pay for the length of time I expect to use the museum, usually 2-3 hours, and I pay $1 per hour. The cashiers at the Met are not so overpaid and snobby that they look down at people who refuse to be gouged for $10.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click here.)
I also become numb when looking at art for too long. The only solution--limit visits to an hour or two, and limit them by subject matter. Visit only the French Renaissance paintings of a certain artist, or only the American paintings of a certain period. Better yet, pick a favorite and just sit in front of it and imagine being a part of it. This is difficult if you pay for each admission, so I prefer annual memberships or small collections.
Also, I play a game. I know the artist wants to control my eye movements over the surface, so I track the way my eyes respond. Insofar as depth perception is an issue (as in the early Renaissance paintings), I try to catch the devices to fool the eye.
--Vicky Lee
(To reply, click here.)
(10/25)